Nothing In Between
by fowl68
Summary: They needed her. These broken pieces of what were once her boys. Her men. And she's willing to do anything, become anything, for them. A tribute to the ladies of Naruto


**Disclaimer:** Don't own anything. The song is I'm a Bitch by Meredith Brooks.

**Author's Note:** Feeling sick. Damn cold weather. Got the idea for this when the song came on the radio. In any case, this is my tribute to the ladies of Naruto.

_-/-/-/-_

"_To tell a woman what she may not do is to tell her what she can do."_

_Spanish proverb_

__-/-/-/-

_I hate the world today_

The first time he sees her in a rage, he flinches. Her usual anger is a loud and annoyed thing. This rage though, it's cold, calculating and subtle and it's more than a little frightening.

"There was nothing you could've done." Jiraiya tells her.

She whirls to look at him, hazel eyes flashing. "That's the point! What kind of world do we live in where kids get killed like _that_? It's ridiculous. Children shouldn't be fighting in this war."

He doesn't remind her that they weren't much older than those children when they'd been pushed into the war.

_You're so good to me, I know  
But I can't change  
Tried to tell you  
But you look at me like maybe I'm an angel underneath  
Innocent and sweet  
_

He shouldn't be surprised really. His father had _told_ him that Nara women were headstrong and clever and that the Nara men liked to fall for troublesome women.

Yoshino was a lovely woman—still is, as a matter of fact. But she gets riled when she's backed into a corner and, more than once after he or his son had done something idiotic_ (Or male, but to Yoshino, it amounted to the same thing)_ has thrown her hands up and asked no one, "I am an intelligent, independent woman. Why am I stuck in a house with two males?"

Shikaku smiles uncertainly at her at those times. "'Cause you love us?"

Yoshino will look at him, blink, and then laugh. She was lovely when she laughed. She's frightening sometimes, with the temper hidden beneath that lovely exterior, but Shikaku figures that times like these were worth it.

_Yesterday I cried  
Most have been relieved to see the softer side_

He finds her crying. Or rather, trying very hard to not-cry and failing at it. When she sees him, she wipes her eyes and cheeks clean. "What're you doing here?"

"What's my student done this time?" Jiraiya asks. Kushina's eyes are red, but otherwise, there's no evidence that she was crying.

"He was being stupid and stubborn and arrogant and-"

"In other words," Jiraiya interrupted. "He was being a boy."

Kushina gave him an unsteady smile. "Yeah."

Jiraiya digs in his pocket and pulls out a mostly clean handkerchief and holds it up to her nose. "Blow." She obeys and he takes a clean corner to dab at her eyes.

"A man with a handkerchief." She says. "I didn't think they still made those."

Jiraiya chuckles. "If that's your not-so-subtle way of reminding me that I'm getting old, then it's working."

She chuckles. "You know," She begins. "Some women can cry and still look pretty. I'm not one of them. My face gets all blotchy and-"

"Bah. Those women are fake dolls." He tells her. Jiraiya has always appreciated women, appreciated their soft curves and nice smells. But he likes women with steel in their spine and sparks in their temper. Apparently, so did his student. "You're real. That makes you a hundred times better."

"That almost sounded wise."

Jiraiya laughs and gives her a quick one-armed hug. "C'mon, kid. Let's get some ramen."

_I can understand how you'd be so confused  
I don't envy you  
I'm a little bit of everything  
All rolled into one_

I'm a bitch 

The doctors are respectful and the interns are anywhere from wary to terrified of her. They say that you can know just how annoyed she is by the sharp _clacks_ of her heels. She says that you only get one chance at a mistake. If you repeat that mistake, that's when you're in trouble. She's strict with her hospital staff, but in an oddly fair way and she's one of the best damn doctors they've ever seen.

"Code blue!"

She's there in an instant, her pink hair tied back into a tight ponytail, stethoscope over the guy's heart. "What do we have?"

"Forty-six year old, double bypass post-op. His prognosis was positive."

"His BP's 59 over 20, pulse thready." A nurse said.

"He's crashing. Get the cart." She says over the sudden flatline tone.

"We've gotta crack him." The doctor says.

"We're not cracking a post-op. Get the infusions and .4 of atropine." Sakura looks at the doctor. "What did you give him?"

The doctor looks a little bewildered and a little frightened to be under that stern green gaze. He stutters out a number and a medication. Sakura mutters under her breath, grabbing the defibrillators. "Clear."

The man beneath her jerks once, twice before there's a rapid beeping from the monitor. Sakura takes the syringe, pushing it into the IV and the beeping slowed to a normal rhythm. "He's okay." She rounds on the doctor and he's suddenly reminded that Sakura had been a shinobi before being a medic. "You wanna tell me why you were administering a vasoconstrictor to this patient?"

"It was a painkiller!"

"Unless you combine it with dilaftin! Your patient should be dead, and let me tell you, if you ever let this happen again, you're fired and headed straight back for medical school."

"Y-you can't!"

She props her hands on her hips. "You're in no position to be telling me what I can or cannot do. These are people's lives at stake. There is no room for mistakes."

_I'm a lover_

When Hinata hears the door open and close, her grip on the kitchen knife naturally tightens, but when she hears the familiar footsteps, it loosens once more. Warm arms wrap themselves around her waist and a kiss is pressed to her shoulder.

"Looks good." He says, one hand reaching out to try and steal some of the crisp peppers. She smacked his hand lightly with the flat of the blade.

"It's not done yet." She chided.

She felt his chuckles rumble through her and then a faint wince. "That_ hurt._" She knows he's grinning roguishly without even looking at him. "Kiss it better?"

She chuckles and turns in his arms, complying with his wish.

_I'm a child_

"Papa!" She runs and flings her arm around his neck and he swings her as he embraces her. Her feet are flying off the ground and she feels like she's six years old again.

He tucks her dark red hair from her face and can see her mother's smile on her lips. "Hey, sweetling."

She links arms with him—when had she gotten so _tall?_—and speaks to him about everything and nothing. Her stories frighten him sometimes. The shinobi world was no place for her. She was too kind, too gentle for it, but he knows, perhaps even better than she does, that she's been raised entirely around males. That tended to give a girl steel in her spine.

They split an orange between them and he rattles off new titles that had come into the bookstore that he thought she'd like. He'd set them aside for her.

Rin grinned in delight and asked if he was still reading those cheesy old dimestore romance novels. He didn't answer and popped another orange wedge in his mouth, and she laughs. "You never change, Papa." She says.

_I'm a mother_

Kurenai's son reminds her of him. The same ashy gray eyes, the charcoal dark hair. He explores the world with boyish arrogance and gets into more scrapes than she can remember ever getting into as a child.

Things only get worse when he's a teenager.

"Go to your room and stay there until judgment day!" She tells him, trying very hard to keep her temper down, but it was difficult because along with a youth's arrogance, he was intelligent on top of it.

After he glowers and the door has shut behind him, her words echo in her ears. "Dear God." She muttered, rubbing her forehead. "I sound like my mother."

_I'm a sinner_

There's blood on her hands. It's been there since she was nine years old. Kids grow up quick in Suna. The first time that the subject came up over drinks on a visit to Konoha, she'd answered honestly.

Ino had stared at her. "Seriously?"

"This'd be a strange thing to lie about."

Ino asks her if she regrets it.

Temari doesn't hesitate. "Of course not."

_I'm a saint_

She'd learned a long time ago that her sensei cannot function without a cup of coffee in the morning. So she's become accustomed to making enough for two in the mornings.

He smiles tiredly at her as she hands him the thermos. "You're an angel, have I ever told you that?"

Ino smiles. "A few times a week, actually."

_I do not feel ashamed  
I'm your hell_

"We were at a dinner party—"

She leans her hip on the doorframe, staring down at them. "You know that it's a good story when you don't start off with why you're half-passed out on the floor."

Rock Lee winced. "Please do not yell."

"Oh no. I wouldn't dream of yelling. Especially since the two of you would be insensible after the first word." There's a reason Tenten doesn't usually go drinking with her guys. _Someone_ had to be the adult. "No, I'll wait until the hangover's over to yell at you for doing—or so rumor says—a drinking competition the night before your jounin exams. And against _Genma_ of all people. That man drinks like he breathes."

She helps them both up and dunks both of their heads in buckets of ice water. They come up gasping, Neji's hair plastered to his forehead and Lee looking something akin to a drowned cat.

She smiles sweetly at them in the mirror. "Feeling better yet?"

_I'm your dream_

She visits him at night, in the nightmares that plague him. The flash of her smile, the blank look in her eyes.

Sometimes, someone else will be with her. A ragged, tortured looking someone whose sole red eye looks at him accusingly, a mirror to the one in his own face. He'll try to apologize, but the words won't come out and she'll just smile and smile, the knowledge of where she was_ (She's _not _dead. He knows that, but she's Gone and he's not sure she'll ever come back)_ in that smile and he knows that if he could only ask her, she'd tell him, but his mouth isn't working and he can't ask before they're disappearing into stone colored fog.

_I'm nothing in between  
You know, you wouldn't want it any other way  
So take me as I am  
This may mean, you'll have to be a stronger man  
rest assured , when I start to make you nervous  
And I'm going to extremes  
Tomorrow I will change and today won't mean a thing_

As soon as Kushina begins reading the letter, Minato can already see the upcoming explosion. Her green eyes scan the letter and he sees the tension in her shoulders, her fists slowly clenching, but he and Jiraiya are intelligent enough not to say anything.

She finally explodes. "Those misogynistic, sexist _bastards!_"

Kushina stalks away from them, hissing and spitting, ready to give the council elders a piece of her mind. Jiraiya leans in to his student. "Your girl has quite the temper."

Minato smiled fondly. "Yes. Yes, she does."

_I'm a bitch_

Anko was known throughout all of the shinobi circles as being good with a knife as well as being a very subtle torturer. She was Ibiki's protégée and she _never_ bluffed.

So that's why, when she bursts into the mission office, angry for a reason no one dares ask, they all shift out of her way. The new guy—poor bastard—was sitting in the chair unofficially labeled 'hers'.

Her smile is poisonously sweet. "You've got three seconds to get out of that chair, otherwise I'll cut your kidney out and hand it to you."

The poor bastard was a smartass on top of that. "I need that kidney."

Her smile becomes positively evil. "God gave you two for a reason."

The poor bastard moves.

_I'm a lover_

When he blinks his eyes open blearily, he sees her lying beside him, perfectly comfortable with the fact that she was naked. Then again, what woman with that physique wouldn't?

"Did you know you snore?" Hana asks and Shisui bursts out laughing.

_I'm a child_

He's startled when she runs into his office, but as soon as he sees her, he can see that she's close to tears. And that wasn't something that came easily to Tsunade.

"Who do I have to strangle?" He asks mildly, but the undercurrents of anger are there. He isn't her father, but he might as well be and anyone that had broken her heart wasn't on the good list.

Tsunade looks up, tucking her blonde hair behind one ear. The look of almost-to-tears is almost gone. Instead, there's surprise and fondness. "If I tell you, can I help?"

Sarutobi blinks. He should've expected as much from her. He smiles at her. "Absolutely."

_I'm a mother_

"So, tell me again, how exactly did you fall out of a tree?"

Minato winced as he pulled a T-shirt on. The muscles in his back were still stiff and sore. "Naruto was stuck in a tree."

Kushina was leaning against the bathroom door, watching him with restrained amusement. "Uh-huh. We're talking about Naruto Uzumaki. Your son."

"He's your son too."

"Yes, he is. And he's five years old. How did he get up in the tree?"

"…He climbed."

"That's what I thought. Why don't you just admit that you tried to climb up the tree manually—which you haven't done in years, by the way—instead of using chakra to walk up the tree and get your son, who was probably giggling, was a dumb idea?"  
Minato muttered under his breath as he passed her to brush his teeth. It had been his male pride. Kushina should understand that. She probably found it irritating most of the time, but she understood it. So she should understand that he hadn't wanted to seem like less in front of his son who wasn't old enough to appreciate his skills.

So he'd climbed the damn tree. And slipped.

Idiot.

"…Alright fine. I was an idiot."

Kushina is silent for a few long minutes. Finally, "You _really_ fell out of a tree?"

Minato sighed. "Yes, I really did."

"And just to double-check, he was up in the tree?"

"I wouldn't have climbed it for any other reason." Minato said, spitting out the toothpaste and rinsing his mouth.

Her face was filled with baffled amusement, an expression Minato has seen all too many times since they'd been married. "Didn't you tell him to come down?"

"Of course." But Kushina had yet to realize that kids reacted very differently to mothers as opposed to fathers.

She looked even more baffled. "So why didn't you just teleport up there and haul his ass down? I would've."

Minato chuckled and tugged her closer. "You…are a singular woman, sweetheart."

_I'm a sinner_

She's worked hard to get here, farther than any other woman in ANBU and damn any man who tried to tell her that she couldn't do something.

She's a silent shadow that drops behind the mark, a knife slicing across the victim's neck. Her partner stared at her. "You were saying?" Yugao asked, wiping the knife on the mark's clothes.

_I'm a saint_

When he stirs, it's her face above him, brow furrowed in concentration and the sun directly behind her, making her look like an angel.

"You're beautiful."

Shizune spares him a glance before returning her attention to the wound. "You're doped up."

"Don't change anything." He murmurs sluggishly.

_I do not feel ashamed  
I'm your hell _

He's been staring at her throughout all the time she's been dressing. She's not embarrassed; it's not like there was anything he hadn't seen, but damn if those intelligent eyes on her didn't make her feel just a bit touchy.

Finally, she snaps, "_What?_"

Shikamaru tilts his head. "You are remarkably troublesome, even for a woman."

_I'm your dream_

"Well?" She asked, doing a little spin. The skirt flares around her hips, coming to rest at a little lower than mid-thigh. Her pink hair is tied back in an elaborate knot and there are subtle touches of make-up on her face. "How do I look?"

He can only stare at her for a minute.

"Hey, Naruto. Look at me." He snaps out of it, focusing on her green eyes. "I need a guy's opinion on this. Does this look okay for a date?"

He smiles. "Yeah, of course. You look beautiful." He replies, pushing down the hurt. She wasn't his. Never had been.

_I'm nothing in between  
You know, you wouldn't want it any other way_

Just when you think  
You got me  
Figure out the seasons already changing  
I think it's cool, you do what you do  
And don't try to save me  


"Thanks for the help." Tenten snaps as she steps off the battlefield. Killing field, more like it, with what's left.

Neji shrugged, not moving from his place against the tree. "You didn't need it."

_I'm a bitch_

"Here comes a girl, trying to grow a pair." Someone said as Ino crossed the training field to join them.

Tempers immediately sharpened and the boy was immediately whacked across the head hard enough to make him flinch. Inoichi was about to step in, but his daughter veered from her course.

She simply stood in front of the boy for a minute before her fist snapped out and there was the sound of bones breaking. "Don't tell me what I can't do." She told the boy, who was clutching his broken nose.

Inoichi smiled. That's his girl.

_I'm a lover_

Their first kiss doesn't really count as a kiss because it's him breathing life back into her, his hands pumping at her heart. She hacks up the water in her lungs, and looks up at him. "Thanks."

Hayate simply smiled._(This is the way she always wants to remember him. Healthy, languid, teasing; not the frail, stubborn man he becomes)_ "No problem."

Their second kiss is in the ANBU locker room. Everyone else from the mission has gone home already and Yugao is pulling her shirt over her head, wincing as one of her stitches is pulled at. When her head pokes out of the collar of her shirt, Hayate is leaning against the lockers, simply watching her. Not like a pervert would, but like an artist would, appreciating the fluidity of the motion, not the body that was doing it.

He smiles again—it's infuriating sometimes because nothing ever seems to faze him—and he leans in to brush his lips against hers. "Great job today."

When she finds flowers on her windowsill—ones that hadn't been there before she went grocery shopping—she knows immediately who they're from. "Really? Breaking and entering?"

Hayate pokes his head into the window, brushing brown bangs away from his face. "I wanted to leave an impression."

"Well it worked." Yugao says, setting her groceries on the table. "None of my other boyfriends ever broke into my apartment and waited around for me to show up."

Hayate catches the 'boyfriend' part of the sentence and smiles delightedly. But what he says is, "So others have broken in and left?"

Yugao laughs. "You can say that I haven't had the best of luck with guys."

Hayate strolls towards her. "Well, then, your luck is changing."

_I'm a child_

She leans back against the arm of the couch and he draws her feet into his lap, resting his arms on top of them, book in hand. Hinata had never been fond of reading aloud. She stuttered when she was trying to vocalize her own thoughts, let alone someone else's.

But she likes to hear Shino read. His quiet voice has a certain cadence that relaxes her. He never reads anything complex. Children's stories mostly. Peter Pan, Charlotte's Web, things like that. Even if they both already know the stories, it's still nice to hear them.

_I'm a mother_

Her son comes by fairly often. He's too lazy to cook, is his excuse. Yoshino knows better, but she allows him his illusions.

Shikamaru looks at the glass in front of him. "What is this?"

"It's milk."

"I know that. Why is it in the glass?"

Yoshino folds her arms. "No milk, no nutcakes."

Shikamaru glanced between her and the milk. His mother drove a hard bargain, but then, perhaps her nutcakes were worth it.

_I'm a sinner, I'm a saint_

She's done many things that she isn't proud of. Too many to count now. Sometimes she thinks that that should worry her, that perhaps she should find a new life, even if she'd never known anything but battle.

Konan glances at Nagato, frail and too drained to even walk and then at Pein_ (It's Yahiko. She _knows_ that)_. Then again, they needed her. These broken pieces of what were once her boys. Her men.

_(Yahiko had laughed in delight when he'd first seen her use her paper to create wings. "That's incredible! Now you're literally our guardian angel!")_

And she's willing to do anything to stay that way.

_I do not feel ashamed  
I'm your hell, I'm your dream  
I'm nothing in between  
You know, you wouldn't want it any other way  
_

Sometimes, he thinks he should be afraid of her. She's fierce and violent and everything he isn't. She's got scars, not that that really matters because he has them too and some of them are much more visible than hers.

"Penny for your thoughts." Anko says.

Iruka shakes his head. "It's nothing, really."

If she doesn't believe him—which he's almost certain she doesn't—she says nothing.

_I'm a bitch, I'm a tease_

"Hel_lo_." Asuma can't help but stare as she strides past him.

Kurenai looks back at him, futilely trying to tug the hem of the _short_ dress down. "You're catching flies." She tells him.

_I'm a goddess on my knees_

Her legs don't want to work. She's staring at the memorial right in the face and she still can't comprehend what's right in front of her. He's gone. Gone in a way that he can't come back.

Shikamaru stands by her the entire time. He doesn't say a word, just pulls out a cigarette and lights it. Perhaps he knows that the smell of the smoke comforts her. Perhaps he's just doing it for his own nerves. Whatever the reason, Kurenai is grateful for it.

_When you're hurt  
When you suffer  
I'm your angel undercover_

She hardly sees him anymore, but when she does see him, it's never under the best of circumstances. And usually, he's covered in blood, whether it be his (Rare) or someone else's (More common). He'll shower, eat a small dinner with her before they both retire to bed.

He's gone in the morning, but there's usually a small something on her bedside table when she wakes. A flower or a seashell. Once, it was a pair of goggles.

This time is the same. Blood has stiffened in his hair and she's sure that the dark clothes are hiding even more. "Are you injured?" She asks. Kakashi shakes his head. "Good." She tosses him a towel.

Rin closes the window that she'd let him in through_ (ANBU has a bad habit of teaching their recruits to disregard normal entrances like doors)_ and digs to find him clean clothes. The first time he'd shown up, he'd had to wear some of her father's old things. After so long, some of his clothes that could still be salvaged had taken to staying in one of her drawers.

She knocks—it's more of a warning than asking for permission. He doesn't have anything she hasn't seen before anyways—and slips inside. "Found you some clothes." She says before leaving.

Kakashi steps out of the shower, hair scrubbed hard to get all of the blood out, and dries himself off before beginning to dress. He'd been surprised the first time when there'd been a bandana folded neatly on the pile of clothes, but when he thought about the state of his mask, blood-stained as it was, he's grateful for it.

Their dinners are a quiet thing, usually sandwiches or something equally simple. There are two empty place settings at her table and neither comments on them.

It's as Kakashi is spreading a blanket out on the couch that he turns to Rin, standing there and holding two pillows for him_ (She isn't sure what it is about men and their need to have more than one pillow, but she supposes it's a guy thing)_ . "Thank you." He says simply. "For doing all this."

"Don't be ridiculous." She says, tossing him the pillows. "You're practically family after all."

_I've been numb  
I'm revived  
Can't say I'm not alive  
You know I wouldn't want it any other way_


End file.
